NASCAR Trucks: Hornaday Takes the Cash at Banquet
16 December 1998
Daytona Beach, Fla.- Ron Hornaday, the first two-time champion of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, closed the book his record-setting 1998 season as the tour's all-time and single-season money won leader.Hornaday, feted by an audience of nearly 600 at the Fourth Annual NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Awards Banquet on Dec. 11 in the Grand Ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, received $383,507 in post-season monies.
The awards boosted the 40-year-old veteran's career series money to $2,442,586, enabling Hornaday to pass Jack Sprague, the leading previous money winner.
Hornaday's 1998 winnings $915,407 also was a single-season mark. The old record, $880,835, was set a year ago by Sprague, the 1997 champion.
The Palmdale, Calif. driver's prizes included Featherlite Trailers, Gatorade Front Runner, Goodyear Tires, MCI Fast Pace, Tosco 76 Gasoline and Ventvisor Super Deflector awards of $10,000 each. Hornaday's NAPA Brakes team, owned by Teresa Earnhardt, also received the $10,000 Chevrolet Motor Division award, as the highest-finishing Chevrolet C/K 1500.
The latter prize was accepted by seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt, who said of Hornaday, "Being a race driver, you appreciate a good racer. Without Ron Hornaday behind the wheel, I don't know if we'd have won a championship. Congratulations, Ron. You're the man!"
Hornaday, who won his first championship in 1996, called his crew to the Fairmont stage during his banquet-ending remarks. "Winning a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship has opened a lot of doors for me," he said. "I thank NASCAR and the series for what its done for my life."
Earlier in the day, during the champion's photo shoot at Fisherman's Wharf, Hornaday was paid a surprise visit by Matt Clevinger, a 14-year-old Dallas-Fort Worth-area bone cancer patient and sprint car driver with whom Hornaday has corresponded since meeting last summer.
"He opened up my eyes about what racing and life's all about," Hornaday said of Clevinger's resolve to defeat his illness. The meeting was made possible by the Make-A-Wish Foundation of North Texas.
Also honored was DEI crew chief Fred Graves, who directed Hornaday to a career-best four victories on tracks of a mile or greater in 1998. "I grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York and its been a long journey but a wonderful experience," said Graves, a Cornell University engineering graduate who's leaving DEI to join his son, Andy, on Hendrick Motorsports' NASCAR Winston Cup Series Kellogg's Chevrolet team. "It's been a very emotional and exciting two years of my life."
DEI's sponsor, NAPA Auto Parts, was honored with the tour's Pursuit of Excellence Award, presented by NASCAR President Bill France to NAPA Chairman Bob McKenna. NAPA is the entitlement sponsor of seven major NASCAR events, including NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races at Evergreen, Martinsville and Nazareth speedways and Pikes Peak International Raceway.
The evening's keynote address was delivered by Dennis Huth, NASCAR vice president for administration, who recognized the three-point championship victory by Hornaday over Sprague and a season in which there were 14 race winners, 15 Bud Pole winners and more than 30 different race leaders.
"Ron, you and Jack proved that competition can be close and intense, yet fair and professional," said Huth. "I don't believe any of us will ever forget how you saluted each other after the checkered flag in Las Vegas. It proved our competitors can be tough, but still respectful."
Huth outlined a number of previously announced schedule, television and marketing initiatives to be undertaken by NASCAR and Craftsman. "We had a lot to prove in 1998," he concluded. "Together, we have a lot to fulfill in 1999. Nineteen ninety eight was exciting but 1999 will be unprecedented."
More than $1 million in post-season awards was distributed during the San Francisco festivities, emceed by ESPN commentator Dr. Jerry Punch. Sprague didn't exactly leave empty-handed, collecting $192,091 to run his 1998 money winnings to $745,171. The latter number ranks No. 3 among single-season money winners.
Other top 10 drivers honored were (final 1998 winnings in parenthesis): Joe Ruttman ($547,933); Jay Sauter ($457,765); Tony Raines ($453,845); Jimmy Hensley ($430,328); Stacy Compton ($433,855); Greg Biffle ($359,782); Ron Barfield ($668,910) and Mike Bliss ($395,844).
Rick Carelli, who missed the 1998 top-10 and Fairmont stage by one position, still garnered sufficient post-season prize money to become the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series' sixth millionaire. Carelli, from Denver, Colo., won $40,491 to up his career winnings to $1,018,569 and joins Hornaday, Sprague, Ruttman, Bliss and Mike Skinner as NCTS million dollar-plus drivers.
Compton, who finished seventh in '98 standings, was named Most Popular Driver, an award voted by NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series competitors.
Biffle received the $7,500 Cintas Rookie-of-the-Year Award.
Highlights of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Awards Banquet can be seen at 5 p.m. EST Sunday, Dec. 20 on ESPN2. The telecast will be hosted by Dave Despain and Marty Reid.
The fifth season of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series begins Saturday, March 20 at the Miami-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex in South Florida. The Florida Dodge Dealers 400 will be broadcast live by ABC Television.
